Psalm 132:14 NKJV
“This is My resting place forever;
Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.
Finding Rest in God’s Presence
My Notes
Psalm 132:14 (NKJV):
“This is My resting place forever;
Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”
Imagine God saying—not reluctantly, not out of duty, not as a temporary guest—but with full desire and delight:
“This is My resting place… and I want to be here.”
We often think about our rest in God.
But this verse invites us to consider something breathtaking:
God finds rest in His people.
He chooses them. He desires them. He dwells with them—not momentarily, but eternally. This is the rest of satisfaction, the rest of delight. It echoes the promise:
“The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”— Zephaniah 3:17 (NKJV)
And it reaches its fullness in Christ, in whom the Father is eternally satisfied and through whom He embraces His people with unchanging favor.
God doesn’t just visit His people—He chooses to dwell with them. He calls His church His resting place, not because He grows weary, but because He delights in being among those who love Him. His presence isn’t temporary, conditional, or fragile. It is rooted in His own desire.
What Israel once prayed—“Lord, come to Your resting place”—God answers with more:
“I will stay forever.”
In Christ, we have become the spiritual house where God is pleased to dwell by His Spirit. And if God chooses us as His resting place, we can be certain He will protect, sustain, and preserve what He inhabits.
Where God rests, His people find rest too.
Prayer
Lord, thank You that You desire to dwell with Your people. Make my life a place where Your Spirit is at home, where Your presence revives, strengthens, and satisfies. Help me trust that what You choose, You keep; where You dwell, You defend; and whom You love, You never forsake. I ask You for this in Jesus’ name, Amen
Cross‑Reference (NKJV)
- Ephesians 2:22 — “in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”
- Ephesians 3:20 — “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,”
- 1 Peter 2:5 — “you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
- Psalm 46:5 — “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, just at the break of dawn.”
Key Takeaways
- God desires to dwell with His people.
- His presence is permanent and protective.
- We become His resting place through Christ.
- Where God rests, we find our rest.
Meditation Questions
- What does it mean that God desires to dwell with me?
- How have I seen God “over‑answer” prayers in my life?
- Where do I need to rest more deeply in His presence today?
Proverb for Today
When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Proverbs 16:7 NKJV
Daily Scripture
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:8-10 NKJV
Bill
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Summary of Commentaries:
God declares Zion—ultimately symbolizing His church—as His eternal resting place, the home He desires and delights to inhabit. He never grows weary of His people but chooses them permanently, resting in His love and dwelling among them by His Spirit. This fulfills Israel’s prayers beyond expectation, showing God gives far more than we ask. His abiding presence secures and comforts His church, assuring that what He desires and indwells cannot be shaken or destroyed.
Commentaries:
Charles Spurgeon
“This is my rest forever.” Oh, glorious words! It is God himself who here speaks. Think of rest for God! A Sabbath for the Eternal and a place of abiding for the Infinite. He calls Zion my rest. Here his love remains and displays itself with delight. “He shall rest in his love.” And this forever. He will not seek another place of repose, nor grow weary of his saints. In Christ, the heart of Deity is filled with content, and for his sake, he is satisfied with his people, and will be so world without end. These august words declare a distinctive choice—this and no other; a certain choice—this which is well known to me; a present choice—this which is here at this moment. God has made his election of old, he has not changed it, and he never will repent of it: his church was his rest and is his rest still. As he will not turn from his oath, so he will never turn from his choice. Oh, that we may enter into his rest, may be part and parcel of his church, and yield by our loving faith a delight to the mind of him who taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his mercy.
“Here will I dwell; for I have desired it.” Again, are we filled with wonder that he who fills all things should dwell in Zion—should dwell in his church. God does not unwillingly visit his chosen; he desires to dwell with them; he desires them. He is already in Zion, for he says here, as one upon the spot. Not only will he occasionally come to his church, but he will dwell in it as his fixed abode. He cared not for the magnificence of Solomon’s temple, but he determined that at the mercy-seat he would be found by suppliants, and that thence he would shine forth in brightness of grace among the favored nation. All this, however, was but a type of the spiritual house, of which Jesus is the foundation and cornerstone, upon which all the living stones are built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. Oh, the sweetness of the thought that God desires to dwell in his people and rest among them! Surely if it be his desire, he will cause it to be so. If the desire of the righteous shall be granted, much more shall the desire of the righteous God be accomplished. This is the joy of our souls, for surely we shall rest in God, and certainly our desire is to dwell in him. This also is the end of our fears for the church of God; for if the Lord dwell in her, she shall not be moved; if the Lord desire her, the devil cannot destroy her.
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Enduring Word
This is My resting place forever: Once the ark of the covenant came into Jerusalem, there was to be no more traveling for the tabernacle. The tabernacle, the temple, the altar, and the ark would never rest in any other place than Jerusalem. (Guzik)
i. “This is the joy of our souls, for surely we shall rest in God, and certainly our desire is to dwell in him. This also is the end of our fears for the church of God; for if the Lord dwell in her, she shall not be moved; if the Lord desire her, the devil cannot destroy her.” (Spurgeon)
ii. There is a sense in which this section of the psalm takes the previous requests and answers them beyond all expectation. “The people had asked God to come to his resting place as the ark was brought to Jerusalem; God says that he will sit enthroned there ‘forever and ever.’ They asked righteousness for the priests; God promises to clothe the priests with salvation, which is a greater concept. The people asked that the saints might sing for joy; God promises that they will sing for joy forever.” (Boice)
iii. “The Divine promises teach the great truth that God over-answers our desires, and puts to shame the poverty of our petitions by the wealth of His gifts. He is ‘able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.’” (Maclaren)
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Albert Barnes
This is my rest forever – My home; my permanent abode. I will no more remove from place to place, as when the ark was carried in the wilderness, and as it has been since; but Zion shall now be the fixed seat of religion. See the notes at Psalms 68:16.
Here will I dwell … – Permanently; constantly.
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John Gill
This [is] my rest for ever,…. The rest of my majesty, as the Targum; the place of his rest: and this being forever shows that not Mount Zion literally, nor the temple, are meant; but the church and people of God, in whom he rests in his love, and rejoices over with joy; who are the objects of his delight, and with whom he abides forever; for this phrase is expressive of pleasure and delight, and of permanency and perpetuity;
here will I dwell, for I have desired it; not merely by his omnipresence, in which sense he dwells everywhere, both in heaven and in earth; nor only by his omnipotence, by which he upholds all creatures in their being, and so is present with them all; and they all live and move, and have their being, in him: but by his Spirit and grace reviving and refreshing the hearts of his people with his gracious presence; which is enjoyed in his house and ordinances, and makes them lovely and delightful; and may be expected there, since he has promised it, and it is so desirable and agreeable to himself to dwell there.
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Matthew Henry
God chose Zion hill for the holy hill, and confirmed his choice by the delight he took in it, v. 13, 14. He chose Mount Zion, which he loved (Ps. 78:68); he chose it for the habitation of his ark, and said of it, This is my rest forever, and not merely my residence for a time, as Shiloh was. Zion was the city of David; he chose it for the royal city because God chose it for the holy city. God said, Here will I dwell, and therefore David said, Here will I dwell, for here he adhered to his principle, It is good for me to be near to God. Zion must be here looked upon as a type of the gospel church, which is called Mount Zion (Heb. 12:22), and in it what is here said of Zion has its full accomplishment. Zion was long since ploughed as a field, but the church of Christ is the house of the living God (1 Tim. 3:15), and it is his rest forever, and shall be blessed with his presence always, even to the end of the world. The delight God takes in his church and the continuance of his presence with his church are the comfort and joy of all its members.
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Miscellaneous Comments
“This is my rest forever.” Of the Christian church we may affirm with undoubted certainty, that it is God’s rest for ever: after this dispensation of his will, there will never succeed another; Christianity closes and completes the Divine communication from God to man; nothing greater, nothing better can or will be imparted to him on this side eternity; and even in heaven itself we shall, through an everlasting duration, be employed in contemplating and adoring the riches of that grace, the brightest glories of which have been realized in the consummations of Calvary, the ascension of the Messiah, the breaking down of all national peculiarity, and the gift and mission of the Divine Spirit. Let the argument of the apostle to the Hebrews be fully weighed, and the conclusion of every mind must be, that God has “removed those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain:” Heb 12:27.
—John Morison, in “An Exposition of the Book of Psalms,” 1829.
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